Increasing returns and aggregate production efficiency by a monopoly

This paper considers an economy where there are many firms with increasing-returns-to-scale technologies and attempts to derive sufficient conditions ensuring that monopoly achieves aggregate production efficiency. In a setting of one output and many inputs, we obtain such sufficient conditions which can be interpreted as a nondecreasing generalized average productivity of inputs for each firm. We also show that a special class of generalized Cobb-Douglas production functions has such a property that monopoly always achieves aggregate production efficiency.     

The impact of convertible debt financing on investment timing

We develop a model to examine the timing of investment decisions in relation to the issuance of convertible debt by firms. Our model shows that when the demand shock has higher volatility, the firm finances the investment cost with high-coupon convertible debt. We find that default occurs earlier for firms that finance with convertible debt rather than with straight debt. We also find that firms with high-growth prospection, high volatility, and low capital costs that issue convertible debt tend to defer investments. Furthermore, we examine the investment decisions in which the convertible debt includes a call provision. We show that firms that use callable convertible debt invest earlier than those that use non-callable convertible debt by using suboptimal coupon payments. The opportunity from the forced conversion increases as the volatility increases. These results are consistent with recent empirical evidence.     

Interior Optimal Chaos with Arbitrarily Low Discount Rates

In this study, we demonstrate, for an arbitrarily small discount rate, the existence of a topologically chaotic policy function that lies in the interior of the technology set in a two-sector model with smooth production and utility functions. For this purpose, we adopt CES production functions and a utility function with a constant elasticity of intertemporal substitution. The two-sector model with those functions always has a policy function lying in the interior of the technology set (interior policy function). The existence of a scramble set of a policy function may be proved even in the case in which the discount rate is arbitrarily small.
JEL Classification Number: 041.     

Homoclinic bifurcation and global indeterminacy of equilibrium in a two-sector endogenous growth model

This paper considers an endogenous growth model that belongs to the same family as the Lucas model. In the Lucas model an external effect appears in the physical-goods sector, whereas in our model, it appears in the educational sector. In our model, this external effect yields multiple balanced growth paths. Our model undergoes a homoclinic bifurcation and exhibits global indeterminacy of equilibrium.     

Regional development and non-material public infrastructure

The aim of this paper is to investigate the conditions under which public investment can be allocated to the infrastructure in material and non-material capital so as to have a positive effect on regional development and interregional inequality. To investigate this issue, the paper focuses on the externalities created by investing in infrastructure for the transfer of information, know-how or technical knowledge.     

Catch limits,capacity utilization and cost reduction in Japanese fishery management

Japan's fishery harvest peaked in the late 1980s. To limit the race for fish, each fisherman could be provided with specific catch limits in the form of individual transferable quotas (ITQs). The market for ITQs would also help remove the most inefficient fishers. In this article we estimate the potential cost reduction associated with catch limits, and find that about 300 billion yen or about 3 billion dollars could be saved through the allocation and trading of individual‐specific catch shares.